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Sermon Details
- Pastor Name: Jonathan Cornell
- Date & Time: June 21, 2015 | 10:00am
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SERMON SERIES:
Deep Breath
This morning, we are continuing our series of messages on the activity and evidence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In the Old Testament, the Spirit is described as the ruach, the breath of God, blowing over and through creation—not always calm and peaceably as we saw with Jonah a few weeks ago. Sometimes God steamrolls us with his presence, and sometimes the world steamrolls us and all we can do is look to God. This we saw once again this week, and we are left asking: “Holy Spirit, what are you doing in the midst of this? In the midst of us?”
And so we bring ourselves before Almighty God for a word of hope, to have our faith rekindled. We come because what the world around us needs is super-human, something for which we’re not fully equipped; something so real, and yet somehow other-worldly. What we need the mighty hand of God to do in us is show us how to love.
So as we once again place our lives before God’s Word, let us begin with prayer.
Holy Spirit, into your presence we now come—meet us here. Kindle within us the fire of your love for others, those who are easy to love and those who are not. Burn away the dross from our lives and fill that reworked space with your supernatural power that is only possible by the power of your Spirit. This we pray not in our own power, but in the power of your Spirit at work within us. Amen.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the Word of the Lord lasts forever. Amen.
To begin, on this Father’s Day, I want you to turn to your neighbor and tell them your favorite superhero. By a show of hands or a nod of the head, how many of you dads out there have ever aspired to be a superhero figure to your children? All of you, I would guess, because as Jerry Seinfeld brilliantly puts it, when men are growing up Batman, Spiderman, Superman, these aren’t fantasies, these are options. On some level, all of us think of ourselves as low-level super heroes. This is why, invariably, all of us will at one time or another, take on a house project or a moving project that is way beyond our capacity—because where there’s a will there’s a way (and a wife in the background rolling her eyes).
Download the entire transcript here: Matthew 5 43-48 Love More Powerful Than Hate
